Encounter with Evil Through the Monograph Tracing Brcko’s Jews by Tamara Vijoglavin Mančić

Abstract

In 2022, the Department for the Public Register of the Government of Brčko District of BiH, Section for Archive, and the Jewish Community of BiH, published the monograph Tracing Brcko's Jews (Monograph), authored by Tamara Vijoglavin Mančić. It is, in Brcko's circumstances, a valuable and rare publication which, in a concise, graphic, well-documented, and methodical way, brings back from oblivion the tragic fate of the Jews, who made a significant contribution to the economic and cultural development of the city, and who were, at one historical moment, most brutally exterminated from the area of Brcko. Today, there are no traces of their habitation in Brčko, nor a "place of memory" of their tragic fate. As such, the Monograph Tracing Brcko's Jews is a historiographical miniature of snatching from oblivion the presence of Evil in these parts. And much more than that. Because in her "places of silence" we can read off the lack of our freedom to face the Evil in ourselves and around us. And you can't escape from Evil, because it is always potentially within us. We must confront Evil, both within us and around us. Therefore, these "places of silence" ask for a change one's existential positioning. Otherwise, a new Evil is at the door, with whose arrival we will again be either victims or criminals. Or both.